Identifying starch in deep time: Designing a roadmap for archaeological starch research

Starch is an important indicator of plant resources used by early human populations, and with nearly four decades of research, archaeological starch studies illuminate aspects of past technologies, diet, and health. Starch is found in plant roots, tubers, fruits, seeds, leaves, and woody tissue; a single plant part can contain billions of starch granules, which are subsequently released into the local environment.

A recent surge in interest of archaeological starch analyses has produced numerous publications detailing the investigation of ancient starch. However, despite the apparent abundance in archaeological contexts, little is known about the preservation processes that allow starches to survive and remain structurally intact over thousands, or even millions, of years (i.e., deep time).

Read this open access paper on the FACETS website.

This paper is the first deliverable from a workshop held in 2017 titled “Ancient Starch Research: Goals, Pitfalls, Possibilities,” where a multidisciplinary team of researchers from academia and the food industry came together and discussed extensive starch literature, generated new research methodologies, and debated ongoing experimentations surrounding two major challenges: i) understanding the structural integrity of the starch granules and ii) validating suspected ancient starch through means other than optical techniques, a need that stems from the prevailing skepticism surrounding this avenue of research.

In this paper, we present six potential pathways of preservation and destruction of the starch granule. Through these investigations, we found that many of the processes behind preservation can result in distinct chemical or visual signatures, which help distinguish fresh granules from their ancient counterparts. The preservation methods and validation techniques presented act as a roadmap toward establishing a formal set of criteria within the research community to address challenges of preservation over deep time.

We believe that future work must incorporate multidisciplinary collaborations between and among biology, the geosciences, and chemistry to redesign the current paradigm to realise the full potential of starch analysis for shedding light on the human past.

Read the full paper — Exaggerated expectations in ancient starch research and the need for new taphonomic and authenticity criteria by Julio Mercader, Tolutope Akeju, Melisa Brown, Mariam Bundala, Matthew J. Collins, Les Copeland, Alison Crowther, Peter Dunfield, Amanda Henry, Jamie Inwood, Makarius Itambu, Joong-Jae Kim, Steve Larter, Laura Longo, Thomas Oldenburg, Robert Patalano, Ramaswami Sammynaiken, María Soto, Robert Tyler and Hermine Xhauflair.